Rainy Day Doldrums
by Lancer1968
Summary: Johnny's bored; Scott deals with him and his boredom.


Rainy Day Doldrums

Summary: Johnny's bored; Scott deals with him and his boredom.

Warning: Cussing

Any and All Disclaimers Applicable

Johnny stared out the arched windows in the great room, watched as the intense deluge pounded the once bone-dry terrain into a waterlogged pulp. Rivulets of quickening water overflowed their banks, the mucky contents rushed past the veranda in the once perfectly formed wagon wheel ruts from the day's activities of wagons restocking the north barn with hefty bales of green hay to dry. Luckily all the hay had been moved and stacked before the storm arrived.

Johnny crossed the room from his comfortable seat on the stuffed settee, his spurs jangled merrily, did not match his current disposition. He opened the French doors to see if there was any chance that any clearing loomed over the west mountain range, from where the clouds had rolled in with minimal forewarning. A solitary earsplitting clap of thunder roared in anger, followed by a lone luminous lightning bolt that flashed across the horizon announced the rapid change from the once peaceful glorious spring day to this...surge of torrential rain with ominous skies as far as the eye could see. Johnny didn't realize that he had been loudly sighing for the past ten minutes, getting on Scott's last nerve. Scott had his head down low, fixated on the papers spread out before him on Murdoch's massive oak desk.

"Something wrong, Johnny?" Scott finally asked tensely, throwing his pencil down.

"Nothin' except this rain, wish it would go away, Boston."

"Why? This is the ideal time to stay indoors and get caught up with the accounts, what with Murdoch off to Stockton. He'll be happy to see the books current."

Johnny twisted his head to glare stonily at his brother, "That all ya think about, Scott? Work? Inside and outside? Work? What about havin' a little fun? Ever think about that?"

"Sure, Johnny...but there's..."

"What Scott, more numbers ta enter? Dios! Mierda, brother, ain't ya figure that out yet?"

"Figure what out?"

"That figures," Johnny sighed.

"Okay, brother, I'll give-up. Care to enlighten me, Johnny on what I have or haven't figured out yet?" Scott swiveled around in Murdoch's leather chair to look intently at Johnny, standing alongside him.

Johnny grinned at his brother while he thumped him on the back of his head, "That crap was here before we got here, it will always be here. A man's got ta take a break from work; have a little fun, life's ta damn short ta always have your nose stuck in a book."

"Know what your problem is brother?"

"Nope. What's my problem, accordin' ta ya? Far as I know I ain't got any problems, except this damn rain."

"You need to realize that there is a right way to do things and then there's Johnny's way of doing things."

Johnny looked sideways at his brother, who had returned to his fluid scribbling in the over-sized ledger, entering items from a stack of receipts, tallying down his neat, precise columns and rows of numbers and line item entries.

"Johnny's way, what in the hell is that suppose ta mean, brother?"

"Think about it, brother."

"Playin' games with me Boston? I ain't in the mood for that."

Scott again stopped his work, to watch Johnny, who had moved to shut the patio doors as the wind changed the direction of the rainfall inward towards the estancia. The great room had grown chiller with damp air having blown inside, rustling papers on the desk.

"Games Scott. Talk straight will ya? What's wrong with my way?" Johnny pressed.

"Nothing is wrong with your way Johnny."

"Oh come on Scott, what's on your mind?"

Scott rested his pencil on top of the papers, watched as Johnny picked up and played with each of the objects from Murdoch's desktop, his hands never still, always in constant motion from pent-up energy.

"Johnny, come over here."

Johnny looked at Scott, "What?"

"Come over here," Scott repeated, rose to his feet and indicated for Johnny to take his place in Murdoch's chair.

"Why?" Johnny uttered cautiously. He knew that his brother was a sneaky son of a gun.

"Johnny. Sit, here. Please."

"What for?"

"Brother, have you ever even looked at a general ledger accounting book before?"

Johnny guffawed, "Have ya gone plum loco Scott? Why in the hell would I?" He reluctantly sat in Murdoch's chair.

"Here Johnny, allow me to show you just how important it is to keep track of expenses and income, to know how much your herd is worth, whether or not you have enough revenue to make it through another month. Can you purchase one or two new breeding bulls? What if a drought comes, what if the herd gets sick, what if the barn burns down with all their winter feed inside. How are you going to cover the lost?"

"Shit! No! Enough, Scott! Ain't this suppose ta be your work and Murdoch's? I don't need ta know this crap." He tried to stand up but Scott pressed him back down in the chair.

"Don't move, Johnny. This is the perfect time for you to learn about the operations side of running a ranch. Do I need to remind you, that you are a third owner of the biggest cattle ranch around these parts? You should always check and double-check your partners' calculations, make sure you're not getting the raw end of the deal in the process."

"Huh? Are ya tellin' me that I can't trust ya or Murdoch not ta cheat me?"

"Johnny! Of course, you can trust us. But you still need to have the knowhow to review the books. What if Murdoch or I aren't around? Somebody has to make a decision whether to pay out any money or receive payment on an account for any deliveries. That leaves you, brother. Since the rain closed down all outside work, there's no time like the present to get started on this lesson."

"You don't give a man too much credit do you, Boston?"

Scott broadly grinned, "Seems to me little brother, I've heard that before."

"Ya should know, seein' as how it was ya that said it."

"That's water under the bridge, Johnny. What's important is that we have work to do together, here and now. Sit still, brother, so we may proceed, together."

Johnny dropped his head down towards his chest, sighed long, knowing that he was trapped, sank deeper into Murdoch's chair. Scott moved one of the front desk chairs alongside him.

"_Trapped like a rat, by my sneaky-assed brother"_ was Johnny's awareness as Scott began explaining the finer points of accounting principles. _"It's ta damn late ta run, joder."_

"_Rain, rain, go away, come again another day, little Johnny wants ta d,"_ ran his thoughts as they jumbled around inside his head along with Scott's long-winded, exhaustive explanation on each point of accounting.

Frustrated, he looked at Scott to ask, "Drink?"

"Mañana, maybe," Scott said as he pointed to another column of numbers.

~Fin~

Sun Dancer


End file.
